


The Empire Expects: On all Sides

by TheInsanityThatLiesOutside



Series: The Empire Expects [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/F, F/M, Great Galactic War, Imperial Officers (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23728360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheInsanityThatLiesOutside/pseuds/TheInsanityThatLiesOutside
Summary: The best the Empire can offer, the 22nd “Devil Dogs” Tarekith Regiment purged the Galaxy of traitor filth. In the grinding siege of Tribuna, Captain Eckell Greywillow and the Tarekith find themselves drawn into a scheme that threatens the entire Empire itself. It is a plot that seems to permeate through the ranks of the Imperial Army, even all the way to high command. Greywillow will be forced to fight his own comrades just as much as the Rebel Scum. Will the dogged spirit of Tarekith prevail or will their beloved Empire fall?
Series: The Empire Expects [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709092





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This has been a project long coming for me. I've worked on and off on this for nearly a year now and this is a passion project. I love writing and Star Wars. I will first admit that I hardly think I'm the best writer in the world so any feedback you have. I'll honestly take anything, criticism or praise because it helps me improve my passion.

“The Destruction of the Death Star at the legendary battle of Yavin threw the entire Empire into disarray. Seeking to push their advantage, the Rebel Alliance launched a massive offensive throughout the outer-rim, quickly transforming from a haggled loose coalition of bandits and terrorists into an organized, fearsome army. Imperial control there had already been tenuous. Seven hundred systems were lost in one fell swoop. The entirety of the outer-rim had fallen into Rebel hands. 

To make this all worse, the infamous mid-rim campaign was launched by the dreaded Rebel General Amrashad, famed for his brilliant use of armor and orbital bombardments. The offensive was devastating to the Empire, for before this, the Rebels had lacked a major naval presence up to this point. The defection of the 4th and 57th Imperial fleets along with the capture of several major shipyard worlds allowed them to build up their naval forces to a considerable degree, before engaging with the Empire in open space. The unprepared and disoriented Empire reeled and over ten thousand systems in the mid-rim were lost in the first year.

Even the great throneworld Coruscant was threatened under the great fist of Amrashad for a time and only the dogged defense of several key worlds on the Perlemian lanes on the road to Coruscant prevented any direct attack. Now the war was beginning to become a slog, as both sides traded blows on each other. Countless worlds burned and trillions died, but the next two years would force a stalemate. 

Three years after the destruction of the Death Star, the stalemate was broken by General Maximillian Veers after he had decisively defeated the Rebel forces on their secret base on the ice world of Hoth. This placed the dreaded foe, at last, into rout. But it is here that the General fell, leaving others to carry on his legacy.

All over the Galaxy, the conflict escalated to levels never seen after the Clone Wars. In a bid to split the Rebel lines in half, Admiral Stormgald began the infamous Gordian Campaign. This theater of war began to make Hoth seem like a mere opening skirmish.

Here the fighting would be known to be some of the thickest and most brutal battles that were fought in the Galactic Civil War. It is here that many legends were made: the impossible victory of 501st Legion at Arda; the genius of Captain Sloane during the subjection of Dantooine; the 1st Tapani Assault Battlegroup taking the worlds Barkhesh, Celanon, and Epsilon Eight in quick succession; the defense of the world Vaal done single-handedly by the Star Destroyer Tyrant; and the dogged determination of the 22nd Tarekith “Devil Dogs” Regiment during the siege of Tribuna…”

-A Galaxy aflame: A History of the Galactic Civil War from the Imperial Perspective.


	2. Prologue

**Prologue**

The blaster bolt had liquified her guts. She didn’t have long to live.

Her singed, torn coat dragged behind her as she limped down the factory floor. The tin roof above was broken and rainwater pooled down below it. Pale white moonlight flooded into the room. It was the only thing that could shine through the thick smog cloud. Machinery surrounded her as the dark like figures waited to pounce on her for the killing blow. 

Her right hand was gripped tight around the small half-empty heavy blaster pistol as her left tried to desperately stop the blood.

That, and the knife, stuck firm and deep into her, were the only things that were keeping her alive.

She dragged herself up a wrought iron staircase, leaving behind a trail of blood. She couldn’t hear anything but her heavy breathing and her blood dripping down onto the staircase. 

She had reached the umbilical bridge between two factories. A massive shell had plowed through and demolished the middle of the bridge before digging itself deep in the courtyard, creating an eighty-meter wide crater. She took a moment to look outside, jagged factory buildings stood silently in the dark. In the far, far distance, tiny flashes lit the horizon. Every once in a while, a closer, brighter flash lighted the darkness as the artillery launched a counter-bombardment. She looked up towards the skies - wanting to see those beautiful twinkling stars that she had looked up to when she was young, dreaming of adventure - but she saw nothing, the sky was utterly blotted out by smog. 

She heard a loud thud and shouts from the floors below. They had blown down the main gates to the factory complex, the same kill-squad that had pursued her for the last hour. Feet smashed through the puddles that had gathered from the fallen roof as they entered the main foundry. The end wasn’t far.

There was nowhere else to go. She pulled forward with all her strength, knowing what would happen if they got the data tapes in her coat, but she could barely walk. 

Where did all go wrong? The raid on the holo station should have been quick and easy. The informant had told them the foe had intercepted a friendly communication of highest importance. It was absolutely imperative that they could not allow them to decode it, lest terrible consequences incur. Secure it, bring it back to friendly lines at all costs.

It had gone wrong from the very start. Jordi was forced to detonate the explosives on the gate too early when the guards found him. The explosion killed him. He would not be the first to die. Three died in the courtyard, six more as they stormed the facility itself. The security measures on the database fried Beloit. Two more died as they fled. And she was the last one, fleeing like a rat. At all costs, indeed. 

She was now dead. No doubt about it. With a resigned sigh, she decided to make them pay. Holding close the datatypes in her coat, she aimed her heavy blaster pistol towards the end of the hallway. She would take some of her before she died. It was her duty to rid the Galaxy of filth.

Her other hand was cradled around the data-tapes, cradling it as if it were her own child. She wanted to desperately know what great secrets the tapes held. What had been worth her sacrificing her entire cell to retrieve it? Her friends? What had been worth everything she had given? What was going to get her killed right now? She didn’t know and it grieved her. Had it even been worth it? 

The first figure appeared in the doorway, a dark shape against the moonlight seeping in from the broken roof. She fired four tightly grouped shots into his chest. Without a single sound, he toppled back into his suddenly panicked comrades. More shapes flooded through the doorway, five more fell before her blaster ran dry.

She allowed herself one last smile as they flooded into the hallway as she realized something. She had done her duty. She had done her job. She was but a small nameless cog in a great machine of war. She had done her part and she would do just a little more before her end came. She continued to pump the trigger of an empty blaster as a barrage of blaster bolts tore her body apart. She staggered backward.

“Long live the Empire,” she shrieked at the top of her lungs - her final words, her final defiance - before a blaster-bolt pierced her heart. Her corpse toppled off the edge of the broken bridge, bouncing once off a support beam.


	3. Chapter One: A Memory Very Long Ago

**Chapter One**

**A Memory Very Long Ago**

**Twenty-two years before**

There is a valley of ice on the moon of Ejor where the wind howls like a banshee and bites upon exposed skin like a beast. Where the starlight catches the top flanks, the ancient ice is so white, the eye can only take it briefly. As the valley goes deeper, the ice turns to a darker shade of blue. It has been this way a billion years, ever since whatever great old cosmic deed created this valley. Sheer walls of ice a kilometer tall blocked the pale light of the main planet, a swarming green gas giant. In the sky, the stars seem as lifeless as ever. The frozen screams seem to last for eternity, cut and gutted by sharp outcrops and spikes of ice that grow from the valley walls and floors.

In the dark, the 8th platoon of 722nd Battalion moved against the gale. The piercing wind raked at them, trying to steal their woolen capes, tied tight against their necks. They trudged forward into the wind and the driving snow, boots sinking thirty or forty centimeters into the drifts. Despite wearing thick winter gear and gloves, they all felt numb and laden. They had set off seven hours ago full of warmth and hope that had been swept away by the singing wind, leaving behind only rawness and foul moods. 

A gust of wind swept a flurry of ice-dust at the platoon, causing many to scream as ice shards buried themselves deep into any exposed skin. Some fell and clawed at the splinters, their numb and gloved hands trying and failing. Despite this, one figure stood still, a large unmoving statue.

Captain Otaka Pierre plucked the now frozen cigar stub from his numb lips and crushed it under his boot. He would have spat but he knew better, it would have long frozen before it had left his lips. He made his way up a sharp incline and stopped at the ridge, feeling the stinging wind. The wind seemed to scream at him, howling at him to turn back and return to camp. To give up the hunt. 

Never. Never would he submit to the insane chattering of some pathetic wind.

“Boy!” Pierre called in a low, grumbling voice that commanded authority. “Bring me my Marco-binocs now. The rest of you, shut up, find shelter against the wind, rest, and stop your whimpering. Bad enough I have to deal with the wind, much worse with you.”

The boy came rushing behind him as the rest of the platoon found whatever crevice they could find in the windswept valley. With a young round face as pale as the snow that fluttered around them, he stood out against the rest of the Arkans with their darker skin. He had a tall, lean and powerful body. His face never seemed to match his body. The boy was barely seventeen yet he was in the army. A boy barely even starting to approach adulthood, yet despite this, he was the personal adjutant to the Captain.

“Boy!” Pierre shouted impatiently as the boy made his way up the hill. The Captain was dressed in dark grey, thick woolen overcoat with a peaked officers cap. At his hip hung in a leather holster, Pierre’s RSKF-44 heavy blaster pistol snugly fitted in it. He was one meter ninety of solid bone and meat and easily making most dwarfs when compared to him. He had a hard, grizzled face and bright green eyes. 

Pieree was the Captain of E Company of the 722nd Battalion. Unlike an overwhelming majority of the Grand Army, they were not made of Clones. Instead, they were made of common men and women that had taken upon themselves the duty to do everything they could in the name of the Republic. The 722nd had once been the PDF forces of the human colony world of Arkan, that was, until the Separatist traitor scum had fallen upon their world. The Grand Army had come to the rescue of Arkan. When the Separatists had been repulsed, at last, Arkan had raised their own forces to act as the auxiliary assistance to the path that the Clones were carving through traitor space. 

And now, as if to fulfill their role as the ditch-diggers, they were now on this ice ball, freezing their toes off. 

The boy took the Marco-binocs out of their leather covering and handed it to Pierre who curtly took it with a nod. “Took you long enough, boy.”

The Captain stared at the valley through the binoculars. The entire scene was suddenly bathed in a bright green tint before it settled into less harsh colors as the binocs adjusted to the light. The valley seemed to stretch on another thousand klicks. He handed the Marco-binocs back to the boy and took a data slate out of his jacket. He warmed it up and thumbed down the mission briefing he had been given until he reached the picture attached: the mouth of a cave that descended into the icy depths like a throat into the pit of a stomach. He didn’t need his macro-binocs again to see the yawning mouth of the cave. Icy protrusions had erupted around the maw like fangs waiting to swallow any who entered up. A shelf of rocket outcrop hung above the cave that acted as a protection against the very worst of the wind.

That was his target. If the informants were right that was where the target was. Pierre didn’t try to hide the deep fear that was churning deep in his wine-sodden gut. What was in the cave scared him more than a division of clankers.

“Boy, gather the men. We will march off in that direction.” The howl of the wind was now incredibly loud as Pierre pointed towards the cave. “Did you hear me?”

“I heard.” Said Cadet Eckell Greyhound as he made his way down the incline.

**~0~0~0~**

  
  


Eckell sighed heavily as they made their way into the cave. Pierre was at the front, shining the way with the heavy-duty chem-lantern in his right hand, his massive blaster pistol in his right. The squad followed close behind.

The wind screamed outside the mouth, higher and shriller than Eckell thought ever possible. The walls of the cave were stone that was encrusted by a thick layer of ice. The platoon fanned out and took defensive positions in the mouth. The tunnel that slowly winded downwards was large, thirty meters wide and ten high. Beams of light cut into the darkness. They gave Eckell a feeling of uneasiness. This whole thing was churning something deep and fearful in their gut.

“Spread out,” Pierre murmured into his comm. “Take cover. Irene and Hal, watch our ass. The rest, stay frosty.” He almost laughed at his last joke. It wasn't him to make jokes like that, Eckell realised. He knew the captain only made jokes when he was nervous, maybe even scared.

Safeties came off with metallic clicks. The squad fanned out into the cavern in a textbook formation, taking cover behind the strange crystals or rock. Chem-lights hissed softly as they were activated scything through the darkness. Eckell kept himself low as he made his way to the Captain. He didn’t have a blaster, the Captain had forbidden that the boy would be given such a weapon. The boy was not a soldier.

Pierre had taken cover behind a pile of broken rocks. Lieutenant Fols was right next to the Captain. Fols was staring ahead into the darkness with his scanner-binocs. 

“Anything up ahead, Fols?” Pierre asked as the focus rings of Fols’ binocs whirred, adjusting to the near pitch black.

“Nothing to see for half a klick sir, can’t see that much further. Kriffing hell, sir, this cave goes far.”

“Language please, lieutenant,” Pierre joked as he unfurled a fiber-light chart from his coat. He held his chem light over the map. Eckell peered over, the map was a copy of what was obviously a much older map. The original map was frayed on its edges and yellowed.

Fols kneeled in right next to Pierre as the captain began to list his plan in low hushed whispers.

“What about the boy?” Eckell managed to hear the words Fols whispered.

The corners of Eckell’s mouth tightened. The Lieutenant made no secret of his contempt for the boy. Pierre had introduced Eckell to the Company half a year ago, during the worst of the clone wars, much to the disagreement of Lieutenant Fols considered him nothing more than a child, a scared little child that had no right to be in war. He was wrong. Eckell was a soldier, the problem was that he never got a chance to prove himself. He looked up to the soldiers all around him and so yearned to be like them. He was a soldier, despite what Fols said on the matter.

Fols nodded in agreement to whatever the captain had said and made his way to the front to pass on the plan.

“Sir?” Eckell asked.

“Yes, boy,” Pierre said, not looking up from the map.

“Why did you insist I come?”

Pierre scoffed for a moment and then realized what Eckell had just asked. He plucked the fat cigar out of his mouth. “Because I said so, boy.” The Major stood up and raised a fist. “Platoon, form up! We are advancing.”

The platoon formed up into a diamond formation and advanced down into the tunnel. Their chem-lamps led the way. There were whispers of conversation among the troopers. They were hushed and nervous. Eckell was at the back, trying to keep up.

The tunnel led for nearly a hundred meters and in places sharply descended downwards before it opened up to a large ice cavern. There was the sound of water running somewhere below. The wind was whistling in from somewhere, barely heard above the roar of the water. Fols peered over the side and shone in his lamp downwards. All he could see was darkness. 

They continued to advance along a ledge along the underground ravine that slowly became more and more narrow. They had to go single file in some places. “Careful,” The Major said as he skittered along the side of the narrowest section. Barely half a meter wide and twenty long. Slinging their packs to the front, the rest crossed the tapered shelf. Eckell was, again, the last one across.

Just at the last step, the ground gave in below his feet. Everyone in the platoon gasped loudly and only the strong grip of Pierre’s hand stopped Eckell from following the rocks that tumbled downwards. It took a solid minute for them to hear the distant splash of the rocks hitting the bottom.

“Are you okay?” Pierre asked, a tinge of concern in his voice. His face softened in what seemed like actual worry.

“Yes, I think.”

Then the moment of concern was gone and his face returned to being a rock. “Careful, boy, before you bring the whole unit down.”

“Yessir.”

The platoon kept moving on. Another hundred meters onward they reached a place where the walls of the cavern came crashing in with only a small gap that the platoon crossed to the other side. Eckell saw Pierre keeping an eye on him.

Eckell noticed something about the dark. It was just darkness, as usual, just inky black. But there was something strange about the darkness. It all seemed too much, unnecessarily dark. It seemed to suck the light from their lamps. Like some sort of un-

“Greyhound, what are we doing here?” asked Trooper Irene. 

Eckell glanced around to see the grumpy face of Irene. She would have been beautiful if not for an ugly deep scar ran down her milky eye. The lamp-light seemed to deepen the scar and the scowl on her face. At the very least she had the respect not to call Eckell “boy.”

“What?”

“Why did we march for hours through the worst snowstorm ever recorded on this cursed moon? Why are we nearly a klick below the ground in this damn cave? There’s nothing here. Just pitch-black and ice.”

“W-w-why are you asking me? Why would I know?”

“You’re the Major’s boy.” It was not a question. It was a statement. “At give me something.”

“I’ve heard something,” Eckell relented. “I’ve seen and passed on the dispatches from high command to the Major. I kinda took a peek at them.”

“Oh my, a naughty boy aren't you?” she said in a mocking voice.

“It was just a peek. All that I know is that we’re looking for we’re here to secure some kind of location. It says that it should be empty or whatever.”

“We’re here just to make sure someplace is empty? All this to secure a location? Twenty klicks in the worst weather that the 722nd has ever seen? And that’s saying a lot.”

“Quiet,” Harkin spun backward. “Trooper Irene, keep discipline. Boy, shut up, you little mutt.”

Everyone fell silent. They kept walking along the ledge for another half an hour. Pierre raised a fist very suddenly and the whole column stopped, raising their rifles. Eckell didn’t have a blaster, the Major didn’t think of him as a soldier, so he moved to the back of the column.

They had stopped in what seemed to be a crack in the wall. Pierre was the first one through, not an easy task considering his bulk. He waved the next troopers in. Eckell was the second-to-last one in. He looked around and gasped softly. Blue-black ice walls suddenly and abruptly turned to stone bricks that seemed to slightly throb green. They produced some basic light but Eckel couldn’t see more than seven steps. The platoon slowly advanced down the hallway. Every ten or so meters, a short flight of stone steps dropped the entire tunnel a meter or so, so it was impossible to see clearly the entire length of the passage.

Ahead the hallway split into two branches. One, to the right, led deeper into the crust. It’s wall’s were made of that blue ice. The left twisted and turned. The walls there were made of that strange green stone. Something twinkled on the ground in the left passage, just at the mouth. Eckell took out his lamp and pointed it down the left passage. Pierre unfurled and consulted the map.

“We’ll go left. Irene, take point.” He ordered. “Har-”

He was cut off as the ground began to shake and quiver beneath their feet. It was light at first before intensifying to the amount that they had a hard time keeping their feet. Screams and shouts of confusion filled the hallway. Eckell fell to his knees. A large piece of the ceiling fell and nearly crushed Harkin who was screaming something that Eckell couldn’t fully make out. 

“Move!” and “It’s Collapsing!” were all he could understand.

A large stone broke from the ceiling and crushed Trooper Irene, blood splattered everywhere. Her legs… her legs... the only thing sticking out of the rock were her still thrashing legs. 

Eckell got to his feet and ran, though he could barely keep his footing. He dashed into the passageway. The whole passageway was beginning to collapse in an avalanche of dust and stone. He tripped and fell down, spraining his left hand, pain shot through him. He glanced backward, seeing the darkness behind him warp and twist and leaped to his feet, fighting off the feelings of despair and how cold it was. He left his torch behind and felt the ground beneath his boots quiver like a man suffering from hypothermia. Random but sudden and strong. He nearly fell over again as the ground beneath him lurched once more. The sound of the collapse was now much closer. He dared not look behind him. 

Lit only by the glow of the walls, he sprinted as quickly as he could down the passageway, the avalanche now only meters away from him. He saw ahead that there seemed to be a stone arch that led into a dimly lit chamber only a dozen meters. He ran faster, his legs aching. A stone beam fell ahead of him and Eckell rolled in order to preserve his momentum and avoid the beam. Suddenly, he was through. The passageway behind him was sealed by a hundred tons of rubble.

He collapsed and lay gasping on the ground, cold sweat streaming down his forehead. His heart was punching against his chest and he couldn’t stop gasping like a fish out of water. He didn’t know how long he lay there but eventually, fighting the aching limbs, he struggled onto his feet. It was pitch black and the ground felt uneven below his feet. Somewhere in the distance, he could see a light. He stumbled towards it, nearly falling over multiple times.

He came into a massive cavern and winced at the sudden light. He gasped in amazement at the scene. He was in a cylindrical chamber a hundred meters high and fifty meters wide. The walls were made of old and moldering grey bricks. Half a dozen passageways winded away. Cuts had been made at irregular levels from shelves. Eckell strode up to one of these shelves and saw a roll of yellowed parchment in it. In the center of all of it was a stone statue of a robed figure standing on a tiered podium, nearly ten meters tall. Melted piles of wax from candles sloughed off the edge and wrapped items sat on the statue’s podium. He guessed this must be a shrine of some sort. Seven large doric pillars surrounded the statue. The entire chamber would have been pitch black if not for the strange multicolored crystals that were growing out of the walls and floors like stalagmites. Coming up no higher than Eckell’s knees, they were jagged and sharply angular. They glowed red, blue, and even yellow.

As he stood in front of the statue he noticed at it’s sandaled feet was a plaque of some sort. It was small and made of rusted bronze. He knelt next to it. Rubbing off some of the rust, he saw the words engraved below.

“A shrine in the memory of Jedi Master Lohan Das.” Eckell read aloud. He didn’t know the name but he certainly knew the title.

He felt his pulse quicken and his hands were shaking. His stomach churned. A feeling of great dread overcame him. He now knew what they had been assigned to clear and secure; a Jedi shrine. He laid both his hands on the melted wax in disbelief. He felt sick but also at the same time incandescent with fury. These were the same people that fled his now lost homeworld of Kinla. The same ones that had allowed the Separatist pigs to freely invade it. The same ones who damned his homeworld and his father to hell. The same ones that had secretly controlled the entire senate. The same ones that had, barely four months ago, betrayed the Republic and attempted to overthrow the chancellor and once more grasp control of the Galaxy into their hands. The order of dynastic monks had shown their cards too early and had paid dearly. 

He clenched his fists in anger.

He noticed that the melted wax under his hands was still warm.

Behind him, a loud, sharp  _ snapp-hiss  _ filled his entire world. He felt his stomach drop, his heart stop, and even his mind for a moment. He felt a slight heat at the back of his neck. 

“Your hands up. Rise slowly. No sudden movements. Don’t look back,” said a female voice behind him. “Or I’ll separate your head from your shoulders.”

Eckell gulped and raised both his hands. He sorely wished he had a blaster of some sort on his person. But what use was it against someone behind him with a lightsaber. He slowly rose up, not looking behind him; half because she told him and half because he didn’t want to see what was behind him.

“Turn around, slowly.”

He did as asked. The girl could barely be older than him. She was young and scared, just like him. Just pale enough that Eckell could have mistaken her as any girl on the streets back in Kinla. She was clad in simple brown robes with a white tunic. She had long brown hair that was messy. She had tied a few strands of her hair into a braid of some sort. 

He saw her gasp in surprise as she saw the youth in front of her. Her lightsaber, the color of green, was still pointed right at his throat, ready to carry out her threat. 

“Please,” he said, despite himself. He frowned slightly as he felt a heat build up in his body. The heat was incredibly hot and he could feel it coursing through his veins. He knew what it was

“I’m sorry, I can’t. They’re closing in.” She said softly and swung her lightsaber back.

“No!” For a moment Eckell looked right at her face, expecting to see that anger and fury you must have to cut down an unarmed boy right in front of you.

But what he saw in her face froze him in surprise. Her eyes turned glassy, deep, like polished marble. She exhaled loudly and the lightsaber stopped a mere inch from his neck. There was a look in her face as she stared back at him. Eckell shivered when he realized the look was recognition. He stepped back but the lightsaber stayed where it was, still frozen in it’s killing strike. 

Her hands went limp and the lightsaber tumbled from her fingers and onto the floor. Eckell saw his chance and rushed forward, kicking away the lethal weapon and delivering a punch to her nose. A practiced self-defense move that Pierre had educated him during down-times between his duties. He had ended up with many sore shoulders and bottoms after practice. Just as his fist was about to collide, what felt like a solid invisible wall smashed into him. For a moment he registered he was in the air before colliding with the statue. He bounced down onto the podium, his back spasming with pain. He dragged himself up into a sitting position. Groaning loudly, Eckell looked up and saw the girl right in front of him. 

“In a world of mud and blood,” Her voice did not match her mouth. The words didn’t match her lips, like a holovid with bad audio. The words coming out of her lips were horrible. Eckell swore he saw frost growing on the floor. Everything became so cold. So, so, so cold. “you shall find an ochre-colored secret recovered by your foes from a land distant. Guard it. Do not give it up. Chase it. Find it. Others will seek it, and you will defend it in blood.”

“But first you must find your dogs of war. Let slip the dogs of wars on your foes. They will fight like devils in your name. Trust them. Trust them, please!” She muttered

“No!” Eckell screamed as she stumbled closer and closer to him. He wanted to run but his legs wouldn’t listen to him. She was speaking perfect Kinlan, he only just noticed. A perfect accent of the high nobles of Carlopolis. How could she know? He looked away, trying to struggle to his feet. 

He looked back. The girl was crawling across the floor towards him, her eyes blank and filmed. Spittle welled out of her lolling mouth. She smiled. The most terrible thing that he had ever seen. He wanted to cry.

“Don't let any of them have it! Any of them! It is not a matter of the wrong hands! All will be the wrong hands! No one has the right to use it! Destroy it! Eckell! Please! The Galaxy will burn.” She pleaded, sobbing. She clawed at his legs, scratching and pulling. “No-one can ever wield it. No-one in your Empire. Not even the Emperor. Not even the Emperor himself! Don’t-”

“How do you know my name? My dogs? Devils? Secrets? You’re mad! Mad!” Eckell kicked out with his boot, throwing her off him. “What the Kriff are you!”

“The force knows you, Greyhound.” She said, looking at him through her unruly hair. Somehow despite everything, those words felt like someone stabbing him in the heart. 

And like that, she snapped out of it. She looked confused as she got onto her feet. She looked back at the young boy cowering at the foot of the statue.

“What, what just-” She said in an unsteady voice before she was cut off by an ear-splitting crack that filled the chamber. Like great doors slamming. The back of the girl’s head blew off in matted chunks and her corpse crumpled into a heap.

As her body fell, Major Oktar Pierre appeared right behind her. The massive blaster pistol in his hand was smoking and his face was filled with rage. He saw Eckell lying on the floor, paler than he had ever been and ran next to him.

“Sir!” Eckell said, not entirely believing what he was seeing. “How did you get here?”

“We found an alternative route down the other passageway. Heard your cries for help and came as fast as we could.”

“I’m just glad you’re here, sir.”

“Did she say anything?” Pierre asked as he knelt down next to Eckell, holding up his broken arm with a look of worry on his face. The rest of the platoon, covered in dust and cuts, gathered around the body in fascination. Some poked it with the tip of their blasters before Harkin shooed them away.

“Some things. None of them I could understand.”

Pierre glanced back at the body. 

“Rubbish is what that was. Forget it.” Pierre stood up and called for a medic. 

“Right. Rubbish. Forget it…. Right.” Eckell muttered.

But he never did.


	4. Chapter Two: Death In Mud and Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the night, the Imperial gun pits have fallen silent, troopers are changing shifts, officers are calling the night. All are exhausted from a attritional warfare that has lasted for months and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The Rebel lines have been inactive for some time now and the Imperial command speculates that they no longer have any offensive abilities.
> 
> Oh, how wrong they were.

**Chapter Two**

**Death in Mud and Blood**

No stars could be seen against the night sky, dark smog clouds from the immense bombardment blocked out so much it was hard to tell if the sun was up. The Imperial Trench lines were silent. It was exactly midnight and the changing of the stations. No contact had been reported for the past week and high command was suspecting that no further attacks would come for the entire month, the offensive abilities of their foe whittled down by attrition. 

How wrong they were.

The distant tall buildings of the city of Tribuna stood behind the silent Rebel lines, like judging giants overlooking a massacre that had already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. A deep rumble filled the land, only detected by seismic instruments kilometers back from the line, and with that, the horizon lit up, a dawn on the horizon in the middle of the night. 

The first Rebel shells whooped in, unexpected and undetected. The first notice was the sudden roars of flames and the shuddering shockwaves of heat slamming across the front line, sundering even the deepest bunkers and trenches. Then a dozen more shells fell. Then a hundred. Then a thousand; the Rebel response to the six-month-long punishment of the Imperial guns. Nearly two thousand were dead in the first five minutes, the rest in disarray.

And across the mud warped landscape, as the Imperial lines exploded and burned, the enemy soldiers advanced. In their dark green patchwork uniforms. Some were haggard, gaunt shapes wielding makeshift weapons. Explosions providing brief flashes of illumination across the dark mud warped landscape, like a flickering lamp. 

The Imperials rallied back and began their lethal response.

Blasters fired from the firestep of the trench line, supplemented by the chatter of heavy blaster canons or the occasional sharp whine of snipers, picking off select targets. The barrage of blaster bolts from both sides was so intense it was like horizontal rain, a multicolored storm of death. It smashed into the trench line, throwing up sheets of mud and turning wood into blackened splinters. 

Imperial mortars and light artillery attempted an answer against this unrelenting barrage but their dull bangs were pitiful against the whirlwind of destruction all around them. From the firestep the Imperial Army troopers fired onto the enemy, dressed in grey battle armor and dark grey battledress. But there were just so many. Dozens spun off the firestep or were killed as precise artillery shells obliterated their positions.   
  


The first trench line was being demolished by massive Rebel artillery bombardment from shells twenty kilometers away, signaled by the high shriek of falling shells. Black mud and toxic green rainwater that had gathered in the many holes rained down. Gargantuan fires blazed into the night.

The horizon was on fire. Burning, spreading, growing. Casting harsh shadows many klicks away. 

Captain Eckell Greyhound threw himself flat onto the muddy ground of the trench as a whooping shell struck the traverse, atomizing an Imperial Army Trooper, leaving nothing that a metallic tasting pink mist. He staggered back onto his feet as another barrage crashed into the trench lines, throwing up hundreds of tons of mud and water. A tidal deluge of filthy rain fell everywhere. 

Eckell noticed something: the drizzle that fell on him was no longer just water and mud. 

There were body parts in it. 

On the firestep, dozens of Imperial Troopers fired blindly into the darkness. Almost immediately, the top of the trench's back wall started to take hits. Wooden plank boards splintered and scads of earth flew out. A trooper on the firestep flew backward into the trench bottom as if he'd been clubbed in the face and never got up again. 

“They’re in the trenches! They’re in here!” Someone at the end of the trench section was yelling at the top of their lungs, somehow drowning out the shriek of the blaster fire and the rolling bombardment of Rebel artillery. 

“Bayonets!” Eckell Greyhound yelled over the chaos. His roaring voice made everyone pause for a moment. “Stand to repel! Prepare for maximum resistance! Bayonets!”

The confused horde of Imperial soldiers could understand that. The Imperial troopers slotted long, silver bayonets onto the lugs of their blaster rifles. 

Suddenly, part of the facing trench war blew in a landslide of mud, ripping out the plankboard of the reverment. Men were thrown from the fire step and as they were dazed, dark shapes flooded through the gap like a breached dam. The Rebels that came into the trench had no faces. Only cold, emotionless leather gas with plastic visors that didn’t betray what should have been people or chain mill sprinter masks greeted them. Inhuman foes with faces they couldn’t see. Many of the uniforms were ragged after three months of brutal attrition. Some had swathes of bloody, sometimes yellow with pus, bandages that covered infected wounds. They were the feared Rebel trench raiders, carrying blaster pistols, sawed-off carbines, and makeshift melee weapons as it was too cramped to use long blaster rifles. 

Eckell drove his bayonet between the rib cages of the first traitor that came through the breach. The traitor screamed as the blade was wrenched out and stopped, at last, when Eckell broke his skull with the butt of his blaster rifle. All around him, the fight turned hand-to-hand: brutal, blind, aimless. 

Men and women screamed at the top of their lungs as they butchered each other. Many lost their weapons in the chaos and resorted to their fists. A Rebel’s hands were blown off but he kept fighting, sinking his teeth into the exposed neck of a trooper before Eckell shot him through the head. Passionate men and women killing each other in this fierce melee. In a trench, only fifty meters long and five wide seventy Rebels and Imperials alike killed each other. Troopers were so packed that there was barely any room to fight in his melee. For some, there wasn’t even enough room to lie down and die, their upright bodies jostled around, often mistaken for still being alive. It stopped being a battle decided by skill, only by sheer brutality and attrition. Dozens on both sides died every second, the trench floor quickly being filled with corpses.

More Rebels leaped into the trench or flooded through the gap. At the same time, more Imperial reinforcements arrived, clogging the trench section with bodies in the most brutal melee that Eckell had yet seen on Tribuna. 

Eckell used his rifle butt to deflect a bayonet from above and then stabbed through his knee with his own. Swearing, the Rebel fell onto the bayonet of one of the Imperial Troopers and she hoisted him up like a farmer pitchforking a bale. A stray scatter round tore the blaster rifle from Eckell’s hand. 

Eckell ducked low under the swing of a barbed trench club, ripping a long vibroknife from the writhing chest of a Rebel on the floor. He drove the blade deep into the blade of the stomach of the Traitor with the club. The rapidly vibrating blade tore apart the Rebels guts, blood-washed the front of Eckell’s face and breastplate. Eckell threw him over his head as he rolled. 

A Rebel body-slammed Eckell into the wall of the trench, winding him. Breathless, Eckell fought back, landing a blow on the side of her face that bruised his knuckles. 

In response, she kicked out Eckell’s knee, dislocating it with a loud snap. Red-hot pain shot through his entire body. The two went down throwing blows in a confusing ball of violence. Eckell felt his vibroknife leave his grip as he desperately struggled with her. He kneaded her in her stomach, shifting the center of gravity so that he was now on top. 

A single stunning blow from her to his right eye threw him right off her, landing on his back on the filthy bloody ground. He clutched his eye in pain. The Rebels' left hand found it's grip around his throat. Eckell gagged, choking, his vision swimming as his neck muscles fought desperately against the tightening grip. He tried to fight back, his right fist hailing blows into the Rebels' side while his left hand dug around in the mud until he found it.

Eckell gripped out the vibroknife. He swung in a stabbing arch at the Rebels side, but her fingers were suddenly around his blade-hand, crushing it and slamming it into the mud. Four slams and Eckell hand gave up. The dagger whipped away. His vision was turning dark. 

Eckell broke the Rebel's nose with a smashing punch, blood violently spluttered out her nose and tears appeared at the edges of her eyes. But the grip held on, Eckell’s vision was blurring and he couldn’t focus on a single thought.

Eckell’s fist fell away, too starved of air to move anymore. He cursed her and knew that even if she killed him, she would still die. One less traitor scum in this Galaxy.

The sound of the blaster was so loud that the noise of it deafened him for a moment. Eckell felt the body’s deadweight slam into him. He pushed the ruined body of him and let fresh, stinking, airflow into his lungs. Through his blurry vision, he saw a khaki glove offer itself to him. He took it and felt pulled up.

“Always have to save your sorry ass, Eckell,” She said with a tinge of play in her voice. Eckell found himself face to face with dull grey eyes belonging to a shit-eat smirking face of an Imperial Captain. She laughed despite the death and massacre around her. “Like I did at Jovan. You owe me.” 

“Malkie, if my memory serves, I also pulled K Company out at Jovan as well. If you somehow hold the line here, I’ll owe you my finest Domaine de la Maison.” Behind her, reinforcements were flooding into the trench, cutting and blasting their way through the surviving Rebels still in the trench. They now vastly outnumbered their foe and were pushing them back.   
  
“Oh, fine. What’s with you and that oh so perfect memory of yours… behind you!” Malkie pulled Eckell down and raised the massive T-6 Thunderer pistol in her hands. There was a thundering roar and the Rebel, one of the wounded who had risen, slammed backward as if he had been yanked back by a rope. “Well, that’s two.”

“Will you stop counting petty shit and do your duty, Essen,” Eckell grumbled as he waved off another platoon into the trench section. The Rebels were screaming as a wave of loyalists crashed into them. Pushed out of the breach, they fled into the night. All the while, heavy guns on the firestep and counter bombardment from the mortars fell onto the fleeing traitor hordes. 

Then silence, only the stomach-churning wail of the wounded could be heard or the crackling of distant fires that roared in the night.

It was all over. 


End file.
